The Ottoman state to 1481: the age of expansion

The first period of Ottoman history was characterized by almost continuous territorial expansion, during which Ottoman dominion spread out from a small northwestern Anatolian principality to cover most of southeastern Europe and Anatolia. The political, economic, and social institutions of the classical Islamic empires were amalgamated with those inherited from Byzantium and the great Turkish empires of Central Asia and were reestablished in new forms that were to characterize the area into modern times.

Origins and expansion of the Ottoman state, c. 1300–1402

In their initial stages of expansion, the Ottomans were leaders of the Turkish warriors for the faith of Islam, known by the honorific title ghāzī (Arabic: “raider”), who fought against the shrinking Christian Byzantine state. The ancestors of Osman I, the founder of the dynasty, were members of the Kayı tribe who had entered Anatolia along with a mass of Turkmen Oğuz nomads. Those nomads, migrating from Central Asia, established themselves as the Seljuq dynasty in Iran and Mesopotamia in the mid-11th century, overwhelmed Byzantium after the Battle of Manzikert (1071), and occupied eastern and central Anatolia during the 12th century. The ghazis fought against the Byzantines and then the Mongols, who invaded Anatolia following the establishment of the Il-Khanid (Ilhanid) empire in Iran and Mesopotamia in the last half of the 13th century. With the disintegration of Seljuq power and its replacement by Mongol suzerainty, enforced by direct military occupation of much of eastern Anatolia, independent Turkmen principalities—one of which was led by Osman—emerged in the remainder of Anatolia.

Osman and Orhan

Following the final Mongol defeat of the Seljuqs in 1293, Osman emerged as prince (bey) of the border principality that took over ByzantineBithynia in northwestern Anatolia around Bursa, commanding the ghazis against the Byzantines in that area. Hemmed in on the east by the more powerful Turkmen principality of Germiyan, Osman and his immediate successors concentrated their attacks on Byzantine territories bordering the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara to the west. The Ottomans, left as the major Muslim rivals of Byzantium, attracted masses of nomads and urban unemployed who were roaming through the Middle East searching for means to gain their livelihoods and seeking to fulfill their religious desire to expand the territory of Islam. The Ottomans were able to take advantage of the decay of the Byzantine frontier defense system and the rise of economic, religious, and social discontent in the Byzantine Empire and, beginning under Osman and continuing under his successors Orhan (Orkhan, ruled 1324–60) and Murad I (1360–89), took over Byzantine territories, first in western Anatolia and then in southeastern Europe. It was only under Bayezid I (1389–1402) that the wealth and power gained by that initial expansion were used to assimilate the Anatolian Turkish principalities to the east.

OrhanOrhan.Stapleton Historical Collection/Heritage-Images

By 1300 Osman ruled an area in Anatolia stretching from Eskişehir (Dorylaeum) to the plains of İznik (Nicaea), having defeated several organized Byzantine efforts to curb his expansion. Byzantine attempts to secure Il-Khanid support against the Ottomans from the east were unsuccessful, and the Byzantine emperor’s use of mercenary troops from western Europe caused more damage to his own territory than to that of the Turks. The Ottomans lacked effective siege equipment, however, and were unable to take the major cities of Bithynia. Nor could they move against their increasingly powerful Turkmen neighbours, the Aydın and Karasıdynasties, which had taken over Byzantine territory in southwestern Anatolia. Orhan’s capture of Bursa in 1324 (some sources date the event to 1326) provided the first means for developing the administrative, economic, and military power necessary to make the principality into a real state and to create an army. Orhan began the military policy, expanded by his successors, of employing Christian mercenary troops, thus lessening his dependence on the nomads.

Orhan soon was able to capture the remaining Byzantine towns in northwestern Anatolia: İznik (1331), İzmit (1337), and Üsküdar (1338). He then moved against his major Turkmen neighbours to the south. Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Orhan annexed Karası in 1345 and gained control of the area between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapıdağı (Cyzicus), reaching the Sea of Marmara. He thus put himself in a position to end the lucrative monopoly enjoyed by the city of Aydın, that of providing mercenary troops to competing Byzantine factions in Thrace and at the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). The expansion also enabled the Ottomans to replace Aydın as the principal ally of the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. The consequent entry of Ottoman troops into Europe gave them a direct opportunity to see the possibilities for conquest offered by Byzantine decadence. The collapse of Aydın following the death of its ruler, Umur Bey, left the Ottomans alone as the leaders of the ghazis against the Byzantines. Orhan helped Cantacuzenus take the throne of Byzantium from John V Palaeologus and as a reward secured the right to ravage Thrace and to marry the emperor’s daughter Theodora.

Ottoman raiding parties began to move regularly through Gallipoli into Thrace. Huge quantities of captured booty strengthened Ottoman power and attracted thousands from the uprooted Turkmen masses of Anatolia into Ottoman service. Starting in 1354, Orhan’s son Süleyman transformed Gallipoli, a peninsula on the European side of the Dardanelles, into a permanent base for expansion into Europe and refused to leave, despite the protests of Cantacuzenus and others. From Gallipoli Süleyman’s bands moved up the Maritsa River into southeastern Europe, raiding as far as Adrianople. Cantacuzenus soon fell from power, at least partially because of his cooperation with the Turks, and Europe began to be aware of the extent of the Turkish danger.

Orhan’s son Murad I was the first Ottoman emperor to use Gallipoli for permanent conquests in Europe. Constantinople itself was bypassed, despite the weakness and disorganization of its defenders, because its thick walls and well-placed defenses remained too strong for the nomadic Ottoman army, which continued to lack siege equipment. Murad’s initial conquests extended northward into Thrace, culminating with the capture in 1361 of Adrianople, the second city of the Byzantine Empire. Renamed Edirne, the city became the new Ottoman capital, providing the Ottomans with a centre for the administrative and military control of Thrace. As the main fortress between Constantinople and the Danube River, it controlled the principal invasion road through the Balkan Mountains, assured Ottoman retention of their European conquests, and facilitated further expansion to the north.

Murad then moved through the Maritsa River valley and captured Philippopolis (Philibé or Filibe; modern Plovdiv) in 1363. Control of the main sources of Constantinople’s grain and tax revenues enabled him to force the Byzantine emperor to accept Ottoman suzerainty. The death of the Serbian emperor Stefan Dušan in 1355 left his successors too divided and weak to defeat the Ottomans, despite an alliance with Louis I of Hungary and Tsar Shishman of Bulgaria in the first European Crusade against the Ottomans. The Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus tried to mobilize European assistance by uniting the churches of Constantinople and Rome, but that effort only further divided Byzantium without assuring any concrete help from the West. Murad was thus able in 1371 to rout the allies at Chernomen (Çirmen), on the Maritsa, increasing his own confidence and demoralizing his smaller enemies, who rapidly accepted his suzerainty without further resistance.

Murad next incorporated into the rapidly expanding empire many European vassals. He retained local native rulers, who in return accepted his suzerainty, paid annual tributes, and provided contingents for his army when required. That policy enabled the Ottomans generally to avoid local resistance by assuring rulers and subjects that their lives, properties, traditions, and positions would be preserved if they peacefully accepted Ottoman rule. It also enabled the Ottomans to govern the newly conquered areas without building up a vast administrative system of their own or maintaining substantial occupation garrisons.

Moving rapidly to consolidate his empire south of the Danube, Murad captured Macedonia (1371), central Bulgaria (including Monastir [1382], Sofia [1385], and Niš [1386]), and Serbia, all culminating in the climactic defeat of the Balkan allies at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. South of the Danube only Walachia, Bosnia, Albania, Greece, and the Serbian fort of Belgrade remained outside Ottoman rule, and to the north Hungary alone was in a position to resist further Muslim advances.

Murad was killed during the Battle of Kosovo. His son and successor, Bayezid I, was unable to take advantage of his father’s victory to achieve further European conquest. In fact, he was compelled to restore the defeated vassals and return to Anatolia. That return was precipitated by the rising threat of the Turkmen principality of Karaman, created on the ruins of the Seljuq empire of Anatolia with its capital at Konya. Bayezid’s predecessors had avoided forceful annexation of Turkmen territory in order to concentrate on Europe. They had, however, expanded peacefully through marriage alliances and the purchase of territories. The acquisition of territory in central Anatolia from the emirates of Hamid and Germiyan had brought the Ottomans into direct contact with Karaman for the first time. Murad had been compelled to take some military action to prevent it from occupying his newly acquired Anatolian territories but then had turned back to Europe, leaving the unsolved problem to his successor son.

Bayezid IBayezid I, undated engraving.Photos.com/Jupiterimages

Karaman willingly cooperated with Serbia in inciting opposition to Ottoman rule among Murad’s vassals in both Europe and Anatolia. That opposition strengthened the Balkan Union that was routed by the Ottomans at Kosovo and stimulated a general revolt in Anatolia that Bayezid was forced to meet by an open attack as soon as he was able. By 1390 Bayezid had overwhelmed and annexed all the remaining Turkmen principalities in western Anatolia. He attacked and defeated Karaman in 1391, annexed several Turkmen states in eastern Anatolia, and was preparing to complete his conquest in the area when he was forced to turn back to Europe to deal with a revolt of some of his Balkan vassals, encouraged and assisted by Hungary and Byzantium. Bayezid quickly smashed the rebels (1390–93), occupied Bulgaria and installed direct Ottoman administration for the first time, and besieged Constantinople. In response, Hungary organized a major European Crusade against the Ottomans. The effort was beaten back by Bayezid at the Battle of Nicopolis (Niğbolu) on the Danube in 1396. Europe was terrorized, and Ottoman rule south of the Danube was assured; Bayezid’s prestige in the Islamic world was so enhanced that he was given the title of sultan by the shadow ʿAbbāsidcaliph of Cairo, despite the opposition of the caliph’s Mamlūk masters (the rulers of Egypt, Syria, and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina), who wanted to retain the title only for themselves.

Turning back to Anatolia to complete the conquests aborted by his move against the Crusaders, Bayezid overran Karaman, the last Turkmen principality, in 1397. His advances, however, attracted the attention of Timur (Tamerlane), who had been building a powerful Tatar empire in Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mesopotamia and whose invasion of India in 1398 had been halted by his fear of the rising Ottoman power on his western flank. Encouraged by several Turkmen princes who had fled to his court when their territories were taken by Bayezid, Timur decided to destroy Bayezid’s empire before turning his attentions back to the east and thus invaded Anatolia. As Bayezid and Timur moved toward battle, the former’s Turkmen vassals and Muslim followers deserted him because he had abandoned the old Ottoman ghazi tradition of advancing against the infidel. Left only with forces provided by his Christian vassals, Bayezid was decisively overwhelmed by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. Taken captive, Bayezid died within a year.

Restoration of the Ottoman Empire, 1402–81

Timur’s objective in Anatolia had been not conquest but rather a secure western flank that would enable him to make further conquests in the east. He thus followed his victory by retiring from Anatolia after restoring to power the Turkmen princes who had joined him; evidently Timur assumed that a divided Anatolia would constitute no threat to his ambitions. Even Bayezid’s sons were able to assume control over the family’s former possessions in western Anatolia, and the Ottoman Empire in Europe was left largely untouched. At that time a strong European Crusade might have pushed the Ottomans out of Europe altogether, but weakness and division south of the Danube and diversion to other matters to the north left an opportunity for the Ottomans to restore what had been torn asunder without significant loss.

Internal divisions, however, were to hinder Ottoman efforts to restore their power during a period that has come to be known as the Interregnum (1402–13), during which four of Bayezid’s sons competed for the right to rule the entire empire. His eldest son, Süleyman, assumed control in Europe, establishing a capital at Edirne, and gained the support of the Christian vassals and those who had stimulated Bayezid to turn toward conquest in the East. The descendants of the Turkmen notables who had assisted the early Ottoman conquests in Europe supported the claims of Mehmed. With the additional support of the Anatolian Muslim religious orders and artisan guilds, Mehmed was able to defeat and kill his brothers Mûsa Bey, who had established his capital at Bursa, and İsa Bey of Balıkesir in southwestern Anatolia, as well as Süleyman, and so assume undisputed possession of the entire empire as Sultan Mehmed (Muḥammad) I.

Under Mehmed I (ruled 1413–20) and Murad II (ruled 1421–51), there was a new period of expansion in which Bayezid’s empire was restored and new territories were added. Mehmed restored the vassal system in Bulgaria and Serbia, promising that he would not undertake new European adventures. Murad II was also compelled to devote most of the early years of his reign to internal problems, particularly to the efforts of the ghazi commanders and Balkan vassal princes in Europe, as well as the Turkmen vassals and princes in Anatolia, to retain the autonomy and—in some areas—independence that had been gained during the Interregnum. In 1422–23 Murad suppressed the Balkan resistance and put Constantinople under a new siege that ended only after the Byzantines provided him with huge amounts of tribute. He then restored Ottoman rule in Anatolia and eliminated all Turkmen principalities left by Timur, with the exceptions of Karaman and Candar (Jandar), which he left autonomous though tributary so as not to excite the renewed fears of Timur’s successors in the East.

Mehmed I, miniature from a 16th-century manuscript illustrating the dynasty; in the Istanbul University Library, Istanbul (MS Yildiz 2653, fol. 261).Courtesy of Istanbul University Library

Murad then inaugurated the first Ottoman war with the city-state of Venice (1423–30), which had maintained friendly relations with the sultans in order to develop a strong trade position in the Ottoman dominions but had accepted Salonika (present-day Thessaloníki, Greece) from Byzantium in order to prevent Ottoman expansion across Macedonia to the Adriatic Sea, its lifeline for trade with the rest of the world. The war was indecisive for some time. Venice was diverted by conflicts in Italy and in any case lacked the force to meet the Ottomans on land, while the Ottomans needed time to build a naval force sufficient to compete with that of the Venetians. In addition, Murad was diverted by an effort of Hungary to establish its rule in Walachia, between the Danube and the Transylvanian Alps, a move that inaugurated a series of Ottoman-Hungarian conflicts which were to occupy much of the remainder of his reign. Murad finally built a fleet strong enough to blockade Salonika and enable his army to conquer it in 1430. Subsequent Ottoman naval raids against Venetian ports in the Adriatic and the Aegean seas compelled Venice in 1432 to make a peace in which it abandoned its efforts to prevent the Ottoman advance to the Adriatic but was allowed to become the leading commercial power in the sultan’s dominions.

Murad, who had been put on the throne by Turkish notables who had joined the Ottoman state during the first century of its existence, soon began to resent the power they had gained in return; the power of those notables was also enhanced by the great new estates they had built up in the conquered areas of Europe and Anatolia. To counteract their power, he began to build up the power of various non-Turkish groups in his service, particularly those composed of Christian slaves and converts to Islam, whose military arm was organized into a new infantry organization called the Janissary (Yeniçeri; “New Force”) corps. To strengthen that group, Murad began to distribute most of his new conquests to its members, and, to add new supporters of that sort, he developed the famous devşirme system, by which Christian youths were drafted from the Balkan provinces for conversion to Islam and life service to the sultan.

With their revenues and numbers increasing, the devşirme men and their supporters achieved considerable political power. Because the new European conquests were being used by the sultan to build up the devşirme, they wanted the conquests to continue and expand, while the Turkish notables, whose power was diminished by the increasing status of the devşirme, opposed further conquest. Murad, wanting to return to aggressive policies of European expansion in order to help the devşirme reduce the power of the Turkish notables, renewed the struggle with Hungary in Serbia and Walachia in 1434. He took advantage of the death in 1437 of the Hungarian king Sigismund to reoccupy Serbia (except Belgrade) and to ravage much of Hungary. He then annexed Serbia in 1439, beginning a policy of replacing the vassals with direct Ottoman rule throughout the empire. Hungarian control of Belgrade became the primary obstacle to large-scale advances north of the Danube. Ottoman attacks on Belgrade and raids on Transylvania failed to move the Hungarians, largely because of the leadership of János Hunyadi, originally a leader of the Walachian border resistance to the ghazis in 1440–42. Although Murad finally defeated Hunyadi at the Battle of Zlatica (İzladi) in 1443, the increased influence of the Turkish notables at Murad’s court led the sultan to agree to the Peace of Edirne in 1444. By its terms Serbia regained its autonomy, Hungary kept Walachia and Belgrade, and the Ottomans promised to end their raids north of the Danube. In 1444 Murad also made peace with his main Anatolian enemy, Karaman, and retired to a life of religious contemplation, voluntarily passing the throne to his young son Mehmed II. Mehmed already showed the leadership qualities that were to distinguish his long reign, though at that time he relied primarily on devşirme supporters for advice and assistance.

The Byzantines and Pope Eugenius IV sought to use the opportunity created by the rule of a youthful and inexperienced sultan to expel the Ottomans from Europe, organizing a new Crusade—joined by Hungary and Venice—after the pope assured them that they were not bound to honour the peace treaty they had signed with Muslim infidels. A Crusader army moved through Serbia across the Balkan Mountains to the Black Sea at Varna, Bulgaria, where it was to be supplied and transported to Constantinople by a Venetian fleet that would sail through the straits, while using its power to prevent Murad from returning from Anatolia with the bulk of the Ottoman army. Though the Crusaders reached Varna, they were left stranded by a Serbian decision to remain loyal to the sultan and by Venetian reluctance to fulfill its part of the agreement for fear of losing its trade position in the event of an Ottoman victory. Further quarrels among the Crusade leaders gave Murad time to return from Anatolia and organize a new army. The Turkish victory at the Battle of Varna on November 10, 1444, ended the last important European Crusading effort against the Ottomans.

Murad reassumed the throne and restored the power of the devşirme party, whose insistent demands for conquest led him to spend the remainder of his reign eliminating the vassals and establishing direct rule in much of Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece. In the process he divided the newly acquired lands into estates, the revenues of which further increased the power of the devşirme at the expense of the Turkish notables. Only Albania was able to resist, because of the leadership of its national hero, Skanderbeg (George Kastrioti), who finally was routed by the sultan at the second Battle of Kosovo (1448). By the time of Murad’s death in 1451, the Danube frontier was secure, and it appeared that the Ottoman Empire was permanently established in Europe. Whereas the victory at Varna brought new power to the devşirme party, the grand vizier (chief adviser to the sultan) Candarlı Halil Paşa was able to retain a dominant position for the Turkish notables, whom he led by retaining the confidence of the sultan and by successfully dividing his opponents. Prince Mehmed therefore became the candidate of the devşirme, and it was only with his accession that they were able to achieve the political and military power made possible by the financial base built up during the previous two decades.

Under Sultan Mehmed II (ruled 1451–81) the devşirme increasingly came to dominate and pressed their desire for new conquests in order to take advantage of the European weakness created at Varna. Constantinople became their first objective. To Mehmed and his supporters, the Ottoman dominions in Europe could never reach their full extent or be molded into a real empire as long as their natural administrative and cultural centre remained outside their hands. The grand vizier and other Turkish notables bitterly opposed the attack, ostensibly because it might draw a new Crusade but in fact because of their fear that the capture of the Byzantine capital might bring about the final triumph of the devşirme. Mehmed built Rumeli Fortress on the European side of the Bosporus, from which he conducted the siege (April 6–May 29, 1453) and conquest of Constantinople. The transformation of that city into the Ottoman capital of Istanbul marked an important new stage in Ottoman history. Internally, it meant the end of power and influence for the old Turkish nobility, whose leaders were executed or exiled to Anatolia and whose European properties were confiscated, and the triumph of the devşirme and their supporters in Istanbul and the West. Externally, the conquest made Mehmed II the most famous ruler in the Muslim world, even though the lands of the old caliphate still remained in the hands of the Mamlūks of Egypt and Timur’s successors in Iran. Moreover, the possession of Constantinople stimulated in Mehmed a desire to place under his dominion not merely the Islamic and Turkic worlds but also a re-created Byzantine Empire and, perhaps, the entire world of Christendom.

To pursue those objectives, Mehmed II developed various bases of power. Domestically, his primary objective was to restore Istanbul, which he had spared from devastation during the conquest, as the political, economic, and social centre of the area that it formerly had dominated. He worked to repopulate the city not only with its former inhabitants but also with elements of all the conquered peoples of the empire, whose residence and intermingling there would provide a model for a powerful and integrated empire. Special attention was paid to restoring Istanbul’s industry and trade, with substantial tax concessions made to attract merchants and artisans. While thousands of Christians and Muslims were brought to the city, Greeks and Armenians were disinclined to accept Muslim Ottoman rule and sought to secure new European Crusades. Mehmed thus gave special attention to attracting Jews from central and western Europe, where they were being subjected to increasing persecution. The loyalty of those Jews to the Ottomans was induced by that of their coreligionists in Byzantium, who had supported and assisted the Ottoman conquests after the long-standing persecution to which they had been subjected by the Greek Orthodox Church and its followers.

Under Ottoman rule the major religious groups were allowed to establish their own self-governing communities, called millets, each retaining its own religious laws, traditions, and language under the general protection of the sultan. Millets were led by religious chiefs, who served as secular as well as religious leaders and thus had a substantial interest in the continuation of Ottoman rule. Mehmed used the conquering army to restore the physical structure of the city. Old buildings were repaired, streets, aqueducts, and bridges were constructed, sanitary facilities were modernized, and a vast supply system was established to provide for the city’s inhabitants.

Mehmed also devoted much time to expanding his dominions in Europe and Asia in order to establish his claim to world leadership. To that end he eliminated the last vassal princes who might have disputed his claims to be legitimate successor to the Byzantine and Seljuq dynasties, establishing direct Ottoman administration in most of the provinces throughout the empire. In addition, he extended Ottoman rule far beyond the territories inherited from Murad II. From 1454 to 1463 he concentrated mainly on southeastern Europe, annexing Serbia (1454–55) and conquering the Morea (1458–60), in the process eliminating the last major claimants to the Byzantine throne. When Venice refused to surrender its important ports along the Aegean coast of the Morea, Mehmed inaugurated the second Ottoman-Venetian war (1463–79). In 1461 he annexed Trebizond and the Genoese commercial colonies that had survived along the Black Sea coast of Anatolia, including Sinop and Kafa, and began the process by which the Crimean Tatar khans were compelled to accept Ottoman suzerainty. In 1463 he occupied and annexed Bosnia. When Albania continued to hold out, helped by supplies sent by sea from Venice, Mehmed sent in large numbers of Turkmen irregulars, who in the process of conquering Albania settled there and formed the nucleus of a Muslim community that has remained to the present day.

Since the papacy and Venice were unable to raise a new Crusade in Europe, they diverted Mehmed by encouraging attacks by his enemies in the east, the Turkmen principality of Karaman and the Tatar Ak Koyunlu (“White Sheep”) dynasty, which under the leadership of Uzun Ḥasan had replaced Timur’s descendants in western Iran. Mehmed, however, skillfully used dynastic divisions to conquer Karaman in 1468, thereby extending direct Ottoman rule in Anatolia to the Euphrates. When Uzun Ḥasan responded by invading Anatolia with the support of many Turkmen princes who had been dispossessed by Mehmed, Venice intensified its attacks in the Morea, Hungary moved into Serbia, and Skanderbeg attacked Bosnia. Mehmed, however, was able to defeat each of those enemies. In 1473 he routed Uzun Ḥasan, who acknowledged Ottoman rule in all of Anatolia and returned to Iran. That brought the Ottomans into conflict with the Mamlūk empire of Syria and Egypt, which sought to expand into southeastern Anatolia. Mehmed neutralized Mamlūk forces, though he could not defeat them. He then turned to Venice, initiating several naval raids along the Adriatic coast that finally led to a peace in 1479, whereby Venice surrendered its bases in Albania and the Morea and agreed to pay a regular annual tribute in return for restoration of its commercial privileges. Mehmed then used his new naval power to attack the island of Rhodes and to send a large force that landed at Otranto in southern Italy in 1480. Success appeared imminent, but his premature death in 1481 brought the effort to an end. Nevertheless, Mehmed had laid the foundations for Ottoman rule in Anatolia and southeastern Europe that was to survive for the next four centuries.

In addition to conquering a large empire, Mehmed worked to consolidate it and to codify the political, administrative, religious, and legal institutions developed during the previous century by promulgating a series of secular laws (kanun) compiled by subject into law codes called kanunnames. The immensity of the task, however, and his diversion in numerous campaigns delayed the process to such an extent that it was completed only during the mid-16th century. Mehmed also had only limited success in building the economic and social bases of his empire. His most important problem was securing enough money to finance his military expeditions and the new apparatus of government and society. The tax systems inherited from his predecessors did not provide the required resources, particularly because most of the conquered lands were turned into estates (timars) whose taxes went entirely to their holders in return for military and administrative services.

Mehmed therefore turned to a number of financial expedients that achieved their immediate objectives, but at the cost of grave economic and social difficulties. He regularly withdrew all coins from circulation and issued new ones with a larger proportion of base metal alloys. To enforce acceptance of the new issues, he sent armed bands around the empire with the right to confiscate without compensation all the older and more valuable coins that were not being voluntarily exchanged for the new. The debasement of the coinage soon caused inflation, which greatly disturbed the industry and trade that the sultan had hoped to promote. In addition, in his search for revenues, Mehmed created monopolies over the production and use of essential goods, distributing them among the highest bidders, who in turn charged excessive prices and created artificial scarcities to secure their profits. Finally, Mehmed established the principle that all revenue-producing property belonged to the sultan. In pursuance of that idea, he confiscated much private property and religious foundation lands, creating tremendous resentment and opposition among those who lost their revenues, including members of the religious ulama (theologian) class, the Turkish notables, and even some devşirme men, whose discontent threatened to undermine both state and sultan. It was only by playing those groups off against each other that Mehmed was able to maintain his own position and power and to continue his conquests.

Ottoman institutions in the 14th and 15th centuries

Changing status of the Ottoman rulers

Ottoman dynasts were transformed from simple tribal leaders to border princes (uc beys) and ghazi leaders under Seljuq and then II-Khanid suzerainty in the 13th and early 14th centuries. With the capture of Bursa, Orhan had been able to declare himself independent of his suzerains and assume the title of bey, which was retained by his successors until Bayezid I was named sultan by the shadow ʿAbbāsid caliph of Cairo following his victory over the Christian Crusaders at the Battle of Nicopolis (1396). Those title changes reflected changes in the position of the Ottoman ruler within the state and in the organization of the state itself.

As uc bey and even as bey, the Ottoman leader remained little more than a tribal chief, sharing administrative and military leadership with the Turkmen tribal chiefs surrounding him. Like them, he was owed the loyalty and obedience of his followers only so long as he led them to victory and only in relation to his military functions. Beyond that, he was only one among equals in the councils that decided general internal policies; the tribes and clans remained autonomous in their internal affairs. The bey was accessible to the tribe and clan leaders as well as to their followers. He could intervene in disputes among the clans, but jurisdiction was temporary and restricted. Muslim law and jurists had little influence, whereas Turkish tribal law and custom prevailed. In such a situation the idea of rule was very limited. Administration was conceived mainly in financial terms, with each clan or family or tribe accepting Ottoman military leadership largely for the financial rewards it could bring. Ottoman chiefs collected the booty in conquered lands and had the right to collect taxes from lands left in their possession after conquests. The only advantage that the bey, as tribal war leader, had over the chiefs surrounding him was the pençik (“fifth”), or right to collect an extra fifth of the booty taken by his followers. Because the bey was dependent for his power and revenues on the assent of his followers, his authority was limited in scope and in time.

As the territory of the Ottoman principality expanded, however, and the Ottomans inherited the administrative apparatus left by the Byzantines, that simple tribal organization was replaced by a more complex form of government. By the time the Ottoman rulers became sultans, they already had far more extensive power and authority than had been the case a half century earlier. The simple tribal organization of the Ottoman bey could suffice only while the state was small enough for the individual tribal leaders to remain on their lands to collect their revenues and fight the nearby enemy at the same time. As the empire expanded and the frontiers and enemies became further removed from previously conquered territory, the financial and administrative functions at home had to be separated from the military. Taxes had to be collected to exploit the conquered territories and support the officers and soldiers while they were away. The treasury of the sultan had to be separated from that of the state so that each would have an independent income and organization.

Institutional evolution

Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, therefore, the Ottoman state gradually reshaped its government and military institutions to meet the needs of administering and defending an expanding empire. That process naturally was influenced by those states that had preceded the Ottoman Empire, not only in the areas it came to rule but also in the lands of its ancestors. So it was that the developing Ottoman state was influenced by the traditions of the nomadic Turkic empires of Central Asia, particularly in military organization and tactics. It was also heavily influenced by the classical high Islamic civilization of the ʿAbbāsids, as passed through the hands of the Seljuqs, particularly in the development of orthodox Islam as the basis of its administrative, religious, legal, and educational institutions and in the organization of its financial systems. In the court hierarchy, the central financial structure, and the tax and administrative organizations developed in the European provinces, the Ottomans were influenced by the Byzantines and, to a lesser extent, by the Serbian and Bulgarian empires. Although conversion to Islām was not demanded of the conquered, many Christians and a few Jews voluntarily converted to secure full status in the new empire. Most, however, continued to practice their old religions without restriction.

A particularly important source of Christian influence during the 14th century came from the close marriage ties between the Ottoman and Christian courts. Orhan was married to the Byzantine princess Nilüfer, mother of Murad I. Murad married Byzantine and Bulgarian princesses, and Bayezid I married Despina, daughter of the Serbian prince Lazar. Each of those marriages brought Christian followers and advisers into the Ottoman court, and it was under their influence that Bayezid I abandoned the simple nomadic courts and practices of his predecessors and isolated himself behind elaborate court hierarchies and ceremonies borrowed primarily from the Byzantines, setting a pattern that was continued by his successors. The triumph of Sultan Mehmed I in 1413 was at least in part because of the support of the Turkish notables and Muslim religious orders of Anatolia, who strongly resented the Christian predominance in Bayezid’s court and attributed his abandonment of the ghazi tradition and attacks in Turkish Muslim Anatolia—as well as the defeat at the hands of Timur—to Christian influence. As a result, Turkish and Muslim influences dominated the Ottoman court during the 15th century, although the hierarchies, institutions, and ceremonies introduced in the previous century remained largely unchanged. The same process that isolated the sultans from their subjects also removed them from the daily administration of government. Formal institutions of administration therefore evolved to take their place, with the rulers delegating more and more of their duties to executive ministers, to whom the Seljuq title vezir (vizier) was given.

The continued close connections of the Ottoman ruling family with the urban guilds and orders of Anatolia, many of the members of which were descendants of officials of the Great Seljuq and Il-Khanid empires, as well as the empire of the Seljuqs of Konya, provided continuity with the Islamic Turkish traditions of government. With them came the basic unit of Islamic administrative and financial organization, the mukâṭaʾa, which associated each office with a source of revenues and made each official the collector of his own salary. At the same time it circumscribed his administrative powers to those tasks directly involved with the financial function. It was relatively simple for the Ottomans to preserve previous methods of local taxation in different parts of the empire while weaving them into a united whole through the veneer provided by the mukâṭaʿa financial units, whose tax revenues were assigned to Ottoman officials. As the central administration was divided into functional departments, a vizier was appointed to direct each. Most of the early viziers were former Turkmen princes who had entered Ottoman service, though some, particularly under Bayezid I, were Christians and Christian converts. State policy was discussed and decided in a council (divan) of those viziers, who were joined by religious, judicial, and military leaders under the direction and chairmanship of the sultan. As the duties of the state became more extensive and complex, the individual viziers gained increased financial and political power, and, as the Byzantine influence caused the sultan to isolate himself, it was inevitable that the viziers would come to dominate the administration. As if to emphasize his removal from the daily affairs of state, the sultan began to appoint one of his viziers as his chief minister, or grand vizier (sadr-ı azem). From 1360 until the conquest of Constantinople, that powerful position was reserved for members of the Candarlı family, which came to lead and represent the powerful and assertive Turkmen notable families; those families thus benefited most from the 14th-century expansion of the empire.

Military organization

The first Ottoman army had been composed entirely of Turkmen nomads, who had remained largely under the command of the religious orders that had converted most of them to Islam. Armed with bows and arrows and spears, those nomadic cavalrymen had lived mostly on booty, although those assigned as ghazis to border areas or sent to conquer and raid Christian lands also had been given more permanent revenues in the form of taxes levied on the lands they garrisoned. Those revenue holdings were formalized as mukâṭaʿas, held by tribal leaders and ghazi commanders who used their revenues to feed, supply, and arm their followers. It was that type of mukâṭaʿa that developed into the Ottoman form of fief, the timar, which was the basis of Ottoman military and administrative organization as the European portions of the empire were conquered from the vassals in the 15th century and placed under direct Ottoman administration. Those nomadic troops had predominated through Orhan’s reign, until he saw that such undisciplined cavalrymen were of limited use in besieging and taking large cities. In addition, once he had established his state, he had found it difficult to maintain order with such an army because the nomads still preferred to maintain themselves by looting, in the lands of their commander as well as in those of the enemy.

To replace the nomads, Orhan organized a separate standing army of hired mercenaries paid by salary rather than booty or by timar estates. Those mercenaries organized as infantry were called yayas; those organized as cavalry, müsellems. Although the new force included some Turkmens who were content to accept salaries in place of booty, most of its men were Christian soldiers from the Balkans who were not required to convert to Islam as long as they obeyed their Ottoman commanders. As Murad I conquered more and more of southeastern Europe, those forces became mainly Christian, and, as they came to dominate the Ottoman army, the older Turkmen cavalry forces were maintained along the frontiers as irregular shock troops, called akıncis, who were compensated only by booty. As the yayas and müsellems expanded in numbers, their salaries became too burdensome for the Ottoman treasury, so in most cases the newly conquered lands were assigned to their commanders in the form of timars. That new regular army developed the techniques of battle and siege that were used to achieve most of the 14th-century Ottoman conquests, but, because it was commanded by members of the Turkish notable class, it became the major vehicle for their rise to predominance over the sultans, whose direct military supporters were limited to the vassal contingents.

Only late in the 14th century did Murad I and Bayezid I attempt to build up their own personal power by building a military slave force for the sultan under the name kapıkulu. Murad based the new force on his right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. As those men entered his service, they were converted to Islam and trained as Ottomans, gaining the knowledge and experience required for service in the government as well as the army, while remaining in the sultan’s personal service. During the late 14th century that force—particularly its infantry branch, the Janissary corps—became the most important element of the Ottoman army. The provincial forces maintained and provided by the timar holders constituted the Ottoman cavalry and were called sipahis, while the irregular akıncis and salaried yayas and müsellems were relegated to rear-line duties and lost their military and political importance. But, when Bayezid I abandoned the ghazi tradition and moved into Anatolia, he lost the support of the Turkish notables and their sipahis before his new kapıkulu army was fully established. He therefore had to rely only on the Christian vassal forces at the Battle of Ankara (1402), and, although they demonstrated considerable valour and fighting ability, they were overwhelmed by Timur’s powerful army.

When the Ottoman Empire was restored under Sultan Mehmed I, the Turkish notables, in order to deprive the sultan of the only military force he could use to resist their control, required him to abandon the kapıkulu, justifying the action on the basis of the Islamic tradition that Muslims could not be kept in slavery. The European and Anatolian revolts that arose early in the reign of Murad II were at least partly stimulated and supported by members of the kapıkulu, as well as the Christian slaves and vassals who had been losing their power to the Turkish notables. As soon as Murad II came to power, however, he resumed earlier efforts to make the sultanate more independent, building up the strength of the Janissaries and their associates and playing them off against the notables. He distributed most of his conquests to members of the kapıkulu force, occasionally as timars but more often as tax farms (iltizāms), so that the treasury could obtain the money it needed to maintain the Janissary army entirely on a salaried basis. In addition, in order to man the new force, Murad developed the devşirme system of recruiting the best Christian youths from southeastern Europe.

Whereas Mehmed II used the conquest of Constantinople to destroy the major Turkish notable families and build up the power of the devşirme, Murad sought only to establish a balance of power and function between the two groups so that he could use and control both for the benefit of the empire. Thus he enlarged the concept of kapıkulu to include members of the Turkish nobility and their Turkmen sipahis as well as the products of the devşirme. Now only persons accepting the status of slaves of the sultan could hold positions in the Ottoman government and army. Persons of Muslim and non-Muslim origin could achieve that status as long as they accepted the limitations involved: absolute obedience to their master and the devotion of their lives, properties, and families to his service. From then on, all important ministers, military officers, judges, governors, timar holders, tax farmers, Janissaries, sipahis, and the like were made members of that class and attached to the will and service of the sultan. The salaried Janissary corps remained the primary source of strength of the devşirme class, whereas the sipahis and the timar system remained the bases of power of the Turkish notables. Mehmed II thus avoided the fate of the great Middle Eastern empires that had preceded that of the Ottomans, in which rule had been shared among members of the ruling dynasty and with others and rapid disintegration had resulted. The Ottomans established the principle of indivisibility of rule, with all members of the ruling class subjected to the absolute will of the sultan.